Rich

Dirty Don's ICONS Page Maybe he was a Mackem, who the fuck knows? I've definitely read a story about his family being Toon fans, though, he might have even been a dirty little turncoat as a child.

Aye, his whole family were Toon fans like, as he was himself.

Funny thing is, I would have loved him here during his Sunderland spell, he was brilliant for them.

The 2-3 at Spurs would be my pick, recently. Would have loved to have been there for that.

"Dirty" Don Hutchison ranks up there as high as any in my books. Lee Hendrie deserves an honourable mention and Jermaine Jenas is easily up there as well.

Already a thread on it, big fella! "Betis/Sevilla Abandoned" Is it merge time?

I think NSG might have been joking.

Disgraceful how some are trying to defend his alleged comments tbh. Let's see what is found, eh? The usual lack of a middle ground is amusingly typical of this forum, like. Dave is right, let's wait and see what the final judgement is before we try and make excuses for him/cast him aside. I just hope he plays against AZ next week, personally.

Saw this as well and the main thought that springs to mind is: urgh. It's getting embarrassing now, especially when the Daily Mail use terminology like "Newcastle will go to war over FIFA's £1m offer..." What the fucking hell are we expecting, really? Are we really that skint?

Classic Spanish fan action. There was also a big fuckoff bottle chucked at Ronaldinho in the Zaragoza/Barcelona second leg, not to mention the gazillion overexaggerations whenever anyone was so much as grazed by an opponent from the players themselves. The refereeing was appalling, as well. Messi, in particular, was a proper cunt - even more so when you consider that Andres D'Allesandro is supposed to be one of his "good friends" (got him red-carded). No need for the "headbutt", though, playful or not. It was a decent game, that aside, but by-and-large the fans in Spain are nauseating.

sorry but it aint gonna happen Classic KD.

The FA have already been paying around half of Owen's wages (50k-ish) since he got hurt, it equates to a fair wedge since June (£2m-ish).

Made me chuckle to see that he wants to return to play in the first International at Wembley in May, simply because of what people on here tend to say about him and England.

Definitely won't turn my nose up at £1m, as while it hardly pays for a "replacement" for Owen (load of nonsense if we ever really thought we'd get £6m+), but if you break it down and add it to the £50k p/w that the FA have providing it goes close to meaning that Owen hasn't cost us anything since he actually got injured, which is very good news as it means we've had a total of around £2.5m from FIFA/The FA since his injury. That's £2.5m we could have paid to a lad who was not fit to play. Plus, we'll have had cash from our own insurers on top of that. Definitely won't complain at getting almost 15% of the entire FIFA budget for injures at the World Cup, although I think Blatter saying we don't really deserve it because we are in a "rich league" is fucking bollocks. It would be interesting to know how many millions Owen's absence has cost us in prize money since he was injured, it's got nothing to do with the fact that the Premiership has a lot of cash. It's all relative to the losses/gains. Blatter is an utter cunt.

My stance on him remains the same: he'd do a job for us and I'd be eager to see him partnered with Martins/Owen. Can't see it happening with Shola's return, Sibierski's new contract and the potential of Dyer and Owen being involved a lot more than usual. I also share people's scepticism about him settling as a "backup" player - even if he did fancy it he'd be an outrageously expensive one, at that, wages-wise. But if we can afford to pay Luque £40k p/w for nowt, then it could be feasable.

I agree wholeheatedly with the sexy bastard above, but I'm unsure as to whether Babayaro will be "fit". I'd stick Harper, Bramble, Rampage, Butt and Sibierski on the bench, an' all. 16 senior players, who'd have thunk it!?

I certainly don't see how the bloke can be any worse than Souness or Roeder have been, individually speaking. Maybe that's big Fred's masterplan? Get the two shittest managers we can possibly find and lower the supporters' expectations suitably until the time is right for another KK-like assault on the Premiership with the Local Hero returning to right the wrongs of the previous regimes... perhaps Shep is saving up all of his coppers to give to Big Al, as well. If you think about it hard enough, it makes sense in an "ultimate conspiracy theory" kind of a way. That's my new stance on Shepherd/Roeder, anyway, it will provide me with a much brighter outlook if I can convince myself to believe it.

My points entirely, Tmonkey. Excellent point regarding Gerrard BTW, someone I've always thought would be better on the right, I posted that on Liverpool's forum at the start of last season to a few boss eyed replies and that's where Rafa played him and he subsequently had the season of his life. I recently watched England under-21s against Spain's youngsters, for 60 minutes or so Nigel Reo-Coker was playing as what can only be described as Roeder's Parker, stuck between attack and defence not quite knowing what to do. Once Huddlestone came off injured (the anchorman can you believe) NRC reverted to that role and subsequently looked twice the player and out came all his attributes within quick succession as he performed a mini cameo of excellence in that role. That player will probably have his career messed about too, yet he has all the attributes to play and excel in that role. Agree entirely with all of this as well. I have been avoiding the Parker argument for as long as possible and I'm glad to see you lads speaking my thoughts, I just hope he gets a game as a defensive midfielder with N'Zogbia or Dyer and Roeder realises he's our best option there. Nicky Butt has been every bit as bad as Scott Parker lately, yet for some reason is still heralded for a few excellent performances previously in the campaign.

1-0 Downing - beauty of a penalty! 1-1 Greening - down the middle! 1-1 Gook - hits the post! 1-1 Clement - leant back and launched it high! 2-1 Morrison - cool penalty, low with pace. 2-2 Carter - left-footed "super" penalty, sent Jones the wrong way. 3-2 Arca - apparently "right-footed", not sure about that like. Into the corner. 3-3 Robinson - tucks it into bottom-corner and goes nutty. 4-3 Yakubu - high to 'keeper's left hand side, WBA must score. 4-4 Kamara - sends Jones the wrong way. Sudden death! 5-4 Boateng - sends Keily the wrong way, it's getting tense now. 5-4 McDonald - dreadful penalty flies over the bar! 'Boro are through to get slaughtered by Manchester United, no skin off my nose, just glad they'll be knackered for SJP on Saturday

I felt a twinge in me undies watching that. The enthusiasm from his end was great to see and the way in which he, himself, can demonstrate drills will be absolutely invaluable if he does get into management/coaching. The bloke obviously has a lot to offer to strikers, in particular, but the brief moment where he was demonstrating how to defend one-one-one was impressive as well. Don't want to go overboard at all at what was essentially just a stunt, but it was enjoyable to watch and he looked like a little lad having a kickabout.

You bastard... out of interest, did you see anything positive from today? I could have mentioned the return of N'Zogbia, Martins' improved running/passing, Sibierski's few moments of decent-ness... Damien Duff showing brief glimpses of class and being desperate for the ball while in excellent positions (despite never receiving it!) and a few other things. It wasn't completely devoid of goodness. Nearly, like.

I've been trying to think of an appropriate response to that for about 18 seconds... and quite simply, I'm speechless.

In fairness, quite a few of what you might term "vendettas" are not completely without justification (however small)! However, I do agree that too many of us are easily led onto the "he's fucking shite" bandwagon that a lot of our players seem to have, myself included. It seems that in the post-Shearer era nobody is exempt from criticism, which is proving to be as much of a curse as a blessing so far!

My thoughts exactly monkey, some mint posts in this thread from your end, btw. Agree with most of them completely. I can't help but think losing the game will help Arsenal's young players more than hinder them.

Cracking entertainment all around, was thoroughly refreshing after watching the might of Wigan versus Newcastle United immediately previous to it. Probably made it seem a fair bit better than it actually was!